PLAYBOY Magazine
August, 1978 pg. 26
"ad astra per triviam"
CONTESTING TRIVIA
|
 |
If you are a devoted trivia lover, you may know what nonnatural
catastrophe annually knocks hundreds of phones out of service in Appleton,
Wisconsin. You don’t? Why, it’s the Annual Midwest Trivia Contest. For an
eyewitness report, we switch you now to our correspondent, Nolan Zavoral.
All is chaos, in the brightly lit studios of WLFM, the 10,500-watt radio
station of Lawrence University in Appleton: phones ringing, people running ,
records playing. WLFM’s 13th Annual Midwest Trivia Contest is about to begin.
For the next 50 hours, the station will test the recall and resourcefulness of
northern Wisconsin listeners, endeavoring to find out who knows the most about
the least.
WLFM’s is reputedly the country’s oldest living trivia contest and it works
this way: A question worth between five and 100 points is asked on the air; while
a record is played, competing listener teams call the station with their answers -
or guesses(two per call); when the deejay sounds a tone, time is up; a list of the
teams who gave the correct answers is read; then on to the next question.
Like:
“What did the Cowardly Lion say after receiving his medals of courage
from the Wizard of Oz?”
Or:
“Whom did Morely Safer replace on 60 Minutes?”
Or:
“What town marks the site that the U.S. Geological Survey indicated as
the geographical center of North America? And how far is it from there to the
Gulf of Mexico, the arctic archipelago and the Atlantic and Pacific oceans?”
Not to mention:
“What is the address of Sherlock Holmes’s apartment?”
During the first two hours of the contest, the deejay is Lawrence student
Bob Brightman. He sits before the control board, swing microphone close to his
lips, while ten feet behind him, volunteers feed team scores into a computer and,
ahead of him other volunteers sit at a table taking calls over nine newly installed
phones.
Ok, listen up now, because Bob has a question worth five big trivia points.
It will be asked, via the wonders of cassette tape, by renowned commentator Paul
Harvey who was recently promoting his new book in Appleton and was
shanghaied by WLFM for the express purpose of taping question 15: “Hello,
Americans! I’m Paul Harvey. Now, for five trivia points where is the International
Armadillo Confab and Exposition held? Gooooood Day!”
One can almost feel the panic out there in listenerland, as teams with
names like Teenage Lust and Slime Creature paw through reference books on
tables and floors for the answer. The phones begin ringing madly.
“Is it held in Texas, in Amarillo?” a caller asks.
“No.”
“Does the town begin with a T?”
“No. That’s two guesses.”
“A U? A B? A Z?”
“Call back.”
“Hey, don’t------”
Click.
The tone sounds. No more calls taken for that question.
An estimated 40,000 calls are received during the 398-question contest
and it is not uncommon for the station to suspend the contest for a few minutes so
the phone lines can cool. (So heavy is the barrage that 1000 phones have been
reported knocked out of service in Appleton.) Two hundred and seven teams
competed in the 1978 contest-- 44 on campus, 163 off. Teams range from one
person to dorm squads of 50 or more-- figure around 2000 trivia players, total,
many of whom stayed up the entire 50 hours.
And for what? Why, for the thrill of winning
one of the unique prizes awarded by WLFM’s director of broad-
casting, Larry Page. In 1978, those treasures included 50-pound
blocks of salt and the tackiest plastic plants imaginable.
“I wanted to get the crummier things.” Page laments,
“but that was all I could come up with at the last minute.”
(Answers: “Aw, shucks, folks, I’m speechless”; Harry Reasoner;
Rugby, North Dakota, and 1500 miles; 221-B Baker Street;
Victoria Texas.)
|
 |